witches

Witches always had a mean black cat that hissed and was too skinny. A cackle. A dark cloak and a straw broom. A pointed hat with a wide brim, a crooked hook nose, and of course a fat wart with long hairs growing out of it. That’s what witches were when I was small… creatures that with their green tinted skin appeared on All Hallow’s Eve, in movies, cartoons, and bedtime stories. Now, they appear to us in our everyday lives, waiting for the bus, sitting beside us in a movie theatre, even in the hospital waiting room. The woman at the bank, in a rush, sighing and squinting behind me on line, tapping her foot as I rummage through my handbag for a pen to sign the withdrawal slip. The mother at the diner, who ground out her cigarette on her teenage daughter’s plate and told her she has, “eaten enough, just look at your thighs spreading as you eat.” We all from time to time posses a bit of witch in us, but thankfully, when we were young we learned of good witches, too. The idea that when everything around us seemed cold and gray, and that when even our favorite blankets weren’t big enough to keep us safe, there was always someone, something, looking after us. It works both ways.